Don
(a “raptor man” from Novato, California) and his wife Mai-Liis (originally from
Estonia) were looking for a relaxed half day of birding, hopefully to get some
of the raptors they don’t get in California!
I originally gave them the option of joining a hawk watch or
road-birding one of the ranch roads, and he chose road-birding (mainly because
there had been a threat of rain today, and it was indeed misty and foggy to
start with), but thankfully they had visited the Santa Ana Hawk Watch on their
own and got almost all their targets, including Hook-billed and Swallow-tailed
Kites! (Kinda wished I had joined them… J)
I
chose Wallace Road as that route has a good variety of habitat, and was
relieved to see the thing was passable after the heavy rain we had had earlier
in the week! Besides the hordes of
Redwings (with the occasional cowbird), we were pleased to see our first raptor
fly up into a palm tree; I initially thought it was a White-tailed Hawk due to
the wing pattern, but it turned out to be a subadult Swainson’s that
practically let us sit right underneath it!
The usual wire birds started showing up (Mourning Doves, Mockingbirds,
and Lark Sparrows), and at one intersection a Long-billed Thrasher sang from a
wire! A lineup of tiny little Lesser
Goldfinches didn’t seem intimidated by the Kestrel sitting next to them, and a
kingbird eventually made itself known as a Couch’s.
Swainson's Hawk
Male Lesser ("Black-backed") Goldfinch
Quiz bird! (Answer is starred in the bird list below...)
Lark Sparrow
In
one patch of thornscrub I was surprised to hear a Clay-colored Thrush calling,
as I had never had it on this route before!
That, along with the Olive Sparrows, refused to come out, but a
Lincoln’s Sparrow in a brushpile was a little more cooperative, along with a
couple of Orange-crowned Warblers. A
Loggerhead Shrike posed on a wire (which led to conservations about vagrant
Northern Shrikes in Solano County, California), and a couple of Green Herons
circled around the road in front of us early on (probably visiting the old
Monte Cristo Tract, as there’s still water back there). A nice male Hooded Oriole sat in a “window” in
a mesquite, and before long the Scissor-tailed Flycatchers started showing
up! Heard some Horned Larks calling in the
fields along with one distant Upland Sandpiper, and at one point a nice Harrier
glided by. At another patch of
thornscrub where I was trying to draw out a Verdin, a Roadrunner sang very
close to the road! He didn’t respond to
being messed with, however (aside from continuing to coo…). While all this was going on I suddenly
noticed a Bobwhite walking down the road!
Thankfully Don was able to get a shot before he snuck into the foliage
(as we continued on I happened to see the babies disappear in the rear-view
mirror…)! We were almost to the wetlands
when I thought I heard some Chachalacas growling, so I got out, and sure
enough, a pair started chorusing, and then another, and then another
(interestingly, another new bird for this route)! Some Tropical Kingbirds tittered as all this
was going on, so Don and Mai-Liis got to hear both kingbirds!
The
wetlands were great: even before we got
there, Don and Mai-Liis’ life Mottled Ducks were waddling across the road! Both flavors of grebes were very noisy (I
always get a kick out of the Leasts’ trumpeting sounds), and lots of Anhingas
and cormorants were drying their wings.
There were tons of Coots, of course, along with several Common
Gallinules and a few unseen Soras. One
hidden spot had a Blue-winged Teal that looked like it was transitioning into
eclipse plumage, and a female Ring-necked Duck glided by. Other ducks included several Ruddies
(including one male in breeding plumage) and a couple of Shovelers, and I
spooked a young Black-crowned Night Heron when I moved the car. We eventually saw a beautiful adult, and a
subadult Yellow-crowned was on a nearby tree!
Don and Mai-Liis spotted a flyover spoonbill that I missed, but
thankfully it showed up down the road, along with a few young White Ibis and
four White-faced Ibis flying in the distance.
A lone Harris’ Hawk looked rather sleepy, and in the more open wetland a
pair of Forster’s Terns batted around while a Belted Kingfisher sat on a dead
tree. Don spotted a distant kettle that
was comprised of mostly Swainson’s Hawks, but was too far away to discern
anything else. The willows had a singing
Northern Parula along with a couple of chipping Yellow-rumped Warblers (a male
Myrtle was especially sharp-looking) and some Orange-crowned. The traffic was really nuts today: not only were there a lot of farm workers
going through, but these huge Mac
Trucks were rumbling by and just barely had enough room to get by us! One even pulled over in order to let us pass, as he evidently didn’t think
there was room enough for the both of us, so we didn’t get to check out the
last wetland as carefully as we would have liked…
A pair of Mottled Ducks waddle across Wallace...
Don and Mai-Liis check out the wetland
Least Grebes
Roseate Spoonbill (lower left) and young White Ibis
Close-up of the spoonbill
Belted Kingfisher
We
had to get going after that, but we did
stop for a couple of things: I thought I
heard an Indigo Bunting tentatively singing, and after playback something
suspicious shot across the road to Don’s side, but what did pop up were a couple of Olive Sparrows chasing each other! (Hope he got a picture! J) A Wilson’s Warbler provided background music,
but the bunting never reshowed (if that’s what it was…). What I assumed was another Lesser Goldfinch
was actually an American when it started talking, and we spooked a little Common
Ground Dove off the wire. We stopped for
a kettle of both vultures and happened to hear White-tipped Doves calling from
the scrub, and I thought we flushed one along the road as we barreled up to FM
490.
We
headed home with 73 species for the official eBird list, but with additional
species seen/heard both before and after (including the resident Black-bellied
Whistling Ducks on the roof), the final list contained 79 species! Bird list:
Black-bellied Whistling-Duck
Blue-winged
Teal Northern Shoveler
Mottled Duck
Ring-necked Duck
Ruddy Duck
Plain Chachalaca
Northern Bobwhite
Least Grebe
Pied-billed Grebe
Rock Pigeon (Feral Pigeon)
Eurasian Collared-Dove
Common Ground-Dove
White-tipped Dove
White-winged Dove
Mourning Dove
Greater Roadrunner
Sora
Common Gallinule
American Coot
Killdeer
Upland Sandpiper
Forster's Tern
Anhinga
Neotropic Cormorant
Double-crested Cormorant
Great Blue Heron
Great Egret
Little Blue Heron
Green Heron
Black-crowned Night-Heron
Yellow-crowned Night-Heron
White Ibis
White-faced Ibis
Roseate Spoonbill
Black Vulture
Turkey Vulture
Northern Harrier
Harris's Hawk
Swainson's Hawk
Belted Kingfisher
Golden-fronted Woodpecker
Ladder-backed Woodpecker
American Kestrel
Great Kiskadee
Tropical Kingbird
Couch's Kingbird
Scissor-tailed Flycatcher
Loggerhead Shrike
White-eyed Vireo
Green Jay
Horned Lark
Verdin
House Wren
Blue-gray Gnatcatcher
Ruby-crowned Kinglet
Clay-colored Thrush
Curve-billed Thrasher
Long-billed Thrasher
Northern Mockingbird
European Starling
Lesser Goldfinch
American Goldfinch
Olive Sparrow
Lark Sparrow
*Savannah Sparrow
Lincoln's Sparrow
Eastern Meadowlark
Hooded Oriole
Red-winged Blackbird
Brown-headed Cowbird
Great-tailed Grackle
Orange-crowned Warbler
Common Yellowthroat
Northern Parula
Yellow-rumped Warbler
Wilson's Warbler
Northern Cardinal
House Sparrow
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